Great! I’ve found another uncommon fern. It’s hardly fair with the Bird’s nest fern though, it stands out from most other plants in the bush with it’s bright yellow-green fronds and it’s distictive rosette habit.
This one was growing on the edge of a sandstone cliff in the bush out the back.
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Yet another Coral Fern! Along with the Pouched Coral Fern ( Gleichenia dicarpa ) and Gleichenia rupestris the G. microphylla compleats the entire set of coral Ferns found in Sydney, acording to NPOS anyway.
G. microphylla has features of both G. rupestris and G. dicarpa. It had very fine small fronds that are a deep green colour and convex on the top like G. dicarpa. But on the undersidethey are flat or just slightly concave like G. rupestris.
I fond this specimen growing on the side of a damp sandstone cliff at the back of the house. There was some G. dicarpa growing there too. G. microphylla is meant to be uncommon in the area so I’m happy to have found it so close by.
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One of the reasons Mt Tomar supports such lush vegitation is that it’s soil derives from the basalt which caps the mountain. Basalt is a very fine grained, dark coloured rock of volcanic origin. It’s abundant in iron, magnesium, calcium and other elements and weathers to form a mineral rich soil that plants love.
I was hoping to see some of the basalt flows but the weather was pretty miserable so we didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked looking about. I did notice the garden walls just below the visitors center were made from presumably local basalt columns. A closer look at the rocks revealed olivene phenocrysts and small vesicles some of which were lined with white crystals, possibly calcite or aragonite?
The walls looked good, and it’s pretty amazing to think that a few million years ago they were part of a massive lava flow!
We took a day trip up to the mountains to visit the Mt Tomar Botanic Gardens and the Zig Zag Railway.
We took the Bells line of road to the Gardens, it was wet and cold but we got the raincoats on and still managed to have a good time. The kids apriciated the run around after being in the car for so long.
The Zig Zag railway was a bit of an adventure. We rode on the steam train, it’s a beautiful engine and the volunteers running it seemed pretty proud. Not long after we departed the train went into a tunnel, it was pitch black in the carriage for a good minute or two. Will was on my lap not not making a peep. When we came back into the light he looked a bit traumatized. It was a leisurely trip to the bottom of the hill with one stop to change direction on the zig. I took Will off between showers to see the steam engine but it was too late for him. I think the dark tunnel, sitting cramped in the carriage and the lack of day sleep took it’s toll and he lost it. He was wailing for mummy, and then when I got him back he kept saying “no moor, no moor, back car”. Then we found out that the steam engine had broken down and we would have to wait for the diesel rail motor to come down and rescue us. Will was really making a scene, we bought the cafe dry of milk, that satisfied him a bit.
It was a quick trip up once the diesel arrived then back into the car for the long trip home.
